Laughter
Hespeler, 23 October, 2016 ©
Scott McAndless – Baptism
Genesis
18:1-15; 21:1-7, Psalm 126, Luke 6:20-21
I
|
f you are going to understand the two
stories that we read from the Book of Genesis this morning, you need to learn
the meaning of one Hebrew word. If you do not know this word, you totally miss
the point of both of the stories. The word is yitschaq and it is the Hebrew word for laughing. It has been
suggested that it might be an onomatopoetic word – that is, a word that sounds
like the thing that it describes (you know, like the word quack sounds like the noise a duck makes and the word bark, like the noise of a dog).
Apparently, to an ancient Hebrew ear, laughter sounded a little bit like
somebody going “yitschaq, yitschaq,
yitschaq.” I guess that some ancient Hebrews just had weird laughs.
That Hebrew word is important because laughter is an
important theme in both stories we read this morning. In one, Sarah laughs in
her tent when she hears an angel promise her husband that she will have a child
even though she is far too old to do so. She laughs because the promise is so impossible
as to be ridiculous and later she denies having laughed. In the second story,
when the promised child is actually born, Sarah laughs again for the absurdity
of her having a child in her old age but she is also laughing for joy.
You get this kind of thing a lot in ancient books like the
Bible. Ancient people really loved to tell stories about how people, places and
things got their names and the punchlines of these stories were often amusing
puns and wordplays. Sometimes people loved these kinds of stories so much that
there would even be competing stories about where the name came from like we
have here.
The really fun things about these stories is that they were
usually created long after the actual naming took place and may have had little
connection with what people were actually thinking at the time. Ancient people
really didn’t have a clear idea of how words and names are invented. But that
was fine because the stories were not really about how something got named. The
stories were about deeper truths than that.
Take, for example, these two different stories about how Isaac
got his name. One takes place just before the child is conceived and, in it,
the laughter is there because the very idea that a woman as old as Sarah could
have a child is too ridiculous. The second story takes place after the child
has been born. The two stories, it seems to me, help us focus in on different
aspects about what it means to bring a child into this world.
But since it is a little bit difficult for us to relate to a
child named Yitschaq who was born thousands of years ago to an aged couple
named Abraham and Sarah, it might be helpful to relate them to a child who we
can actually see and hold and relate to. Let us think of these passages in
relation to another child named Isaac born about six weeks ago. A lot of things
may have changed in the world since the days of the original Yitschaq, but one
thing that hasn’t changed is that, when children come into this world, they
bring with them many challenges and problems, but also many blessings and a
whole lot of laughter.
In the first story, Sarah, hiding in the tent and listening to
God’s promise, laughs. We are told that her laughter springs from what she says
to herself: “After I have grown old, and my husband is
old, shall I have pleasure?” She laughs because, though she greatly desires
a child and long has done so, it is just not supposed to happen at this point
in her life.
Perhaps she
laughs because she realizes that having a child at this point in her life would
also bring with it some very particular challenges. How are you supposed to
take care of a baby if you are dealing with the typical challenges of old age
for example: arthritis? reduced stamina? Heart conditions? How do you deal with
the long sleepless nights when you have all of that going on? How is she
supposed to even feed her child if, as it says in Genesis, it has “ceased to be with Sarah after the manner
of women.” Would a mother even be able to produce milk in such a state? The
real challenges of parenthood are only amplified when a child arrives
unexpectedly and at a time that is not considered normal according to the
culture.
Well, little Isaac who we welcomed into the life of this
congregation this morning, was not born to a mother well past the age of
childbearing, of course. But, at the same time, he didn’t necessarily come at the
usual time for a child, at least according to our modern western culture.
Older cultures had very different ideas about when the ideal
time was to have children, of course, but the expectation of modern society
seems to be that children should ideally enter into the picture only after the
parents’ lives have settled down and they have found a certain economic
stability. The modern ideal is that this is only after the mother has had time
to establish herself in some career or work. I don’t really know if that modern
notion is as ideal as we all seem to think it is – for one thing, it tends to
mean that women delay childbearing until other problems, such as infertility,
begin to be an issue – but that seems to be how we have decided that it is
supposed to be done.
And, no, the arrival of Isaac doesn’t really fit that cultural
ideal. That is not to suggest, for one moment that he was not wanted. There are
people here who looked forward to his arrival with all the love and expectations
that have been there for any child ever born. It is certainly not to suggest
that he isn’t loved. But the birth of any child always brings with it certain
challenges and that is all the more true when it does not come with that culturally
ideal timing and circumstance. I know that Isaac’s arrival will make it more
difficult, for example, for his mother to complete all of her education and to
set out on a path in her life that will build her own economic security. I
mean, it is hard enough for any young
person today to start out and to figure out what sort of work is going to still
be there for them to do and get paid for even just a few years down the road.
That can be a much more difficult road to travel down with a child. The
struggles of life are real and we ought not to pretend they aren’t there.
But, and this is the beautiful part, in the story, Sarah doesn’t
despair in the tent, she laughs. The laughter may be nervous about possible
futures and it may reflect some uncertainty about what that future holds, but it
is still laughter, which is a cousin to joy. There are times to worry about and
especially to prepare for an uncertain future, but at the same time, it is important
to see that God doesn’t just send us those challenges alone. They come mixed
with blessing and laughter and I know that so much of that has already come
with Isaac and that so much more is yet to come.
God also doesn’t send challenges to us in isolation. One of the
greatest blessings that God gives to us is community and, honestly, how could any
of us deal with the very real challenges of raising children in the modern
world without a community to fall back on. One of the things that makes this
event so joyful today is the tremendous amount of support that Isaac and his
mother have from their family and their friends, including three godparents
(which is perhaps a record here at St. Andrews) who have joyfully and lovingly
stepped forward to make their own promises to support and love Isaac and to see
that he comes to know the Gospel and finds his own path to live in it. This
tremendous level of support means that any challenges will be more than
overcome with laughter.
On top of that, of course, is the community of this
congregation. We also have stepped forward in this sacrament of baptism to promise
to give to Isaac every support that we can to help him grow into a man who can
someday chose for himself how he serves God and lives according to God’s will
in this world. That is, as far as I am concerned, the most important aspect of
our celebration of baptism today and I hope it is something that we never lose
sight of. Because of our commitment and our joining together with Isaac, his
mother, his family and his friends, the joy and the laughter is only magnified
because we all get to join in it together.
In the Book of Genesis, Sarah’s laughter after her son has been
born seems a little bit different than in the first story. “God has brought laughter for me; everyone
who hears will laugh with me,” She says. “Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children?
Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” This seems more of a laughter
of pure joy than anything else. It still seems a bit ridiculous to her that she
should have a child in this season of her life, of course, but any apprehension
seems to have dissolved away into pure joy.
I do rather
feel that we are much more in the frame of mind of the second story here today.
I can sense the laughter, the love and joy that surrounds Isaac and his family
today. Perhaps some of Sarah’s joy in the Genesis story comes because she is
now more focussed on the future than on the past or the present. She looks at
this little child that she cradles to her breast and sees, not the troubles and
complications that will come with raising him, but the sheer potential that is
in him. In the Biblical Yitschaq’s case, that
potential is huge because God has promised that, in this little baby’s skin
lies, not only the future of one life but of an entire nation. Sarah can
already imagine the nation that Yitschaq will become and that will inherit all
of the promises that God has already given to Abraham and Sarah themselves.
And potential is absolutely something that we can celebrate in
little Isaac here today. I’m not necessarily expecting that he is going to grow
up to found an entirely new nation. I think that age for that has passed. But
just look at him. Who knows what he might grow up to do or be? He is going to
live in a world of wonders and of change that we can scarcely even imagine. I
don’t know what new goodness will come into the world because of him, but it is
something that I absolutely expect because this Isaac, like the Yitschaq of
old, is a child of promise.
Those promises have been repeated here today. He is a child of
God. He is beloved of the Most High. He has been claimed by all of his friends
and extended family as a part of their family now. He has been claimed by this
congregation as a child of this congregation with all of the promises that go
with that.
Isaac, you named your child – Yitzchaq in Hebrew. How
fitting that you called your child laughter. May he bring much laughter and joy
to you, to your family, to this, your church, and to all who meet him. Laughter
is a gift of God and any of us are fools if we fail to receive that gift with
much thanksgiving.
#140CharacterSermon The story of Isaac teaches us
children bring many challenges that become laughter, joy & blessings when
we work together
Comments
Post a Comment